The Annual Blackstock Derby

Friday night I hit up my small hometown’s annual fair and demolition derby. Ah, good ol’ Blackstock, Ontario, barely on the map. I actually consider Port Perry and Blackstock my dual hometowns, because Blackstock only consists of a couple general stores, a couple churches and an arena (its slogan is “it’s small but it’s paid for!”), but it’s where I went to both high school and elementary school and many of my friends lived in town so I spent a lot of time there. Port Perry is larger and the closest legit town, where we would go if we actually wanted to do something, so I think of it as home, too. But I technically grew up outside of both Blackstock and Port Perry, in Scugog Point, which is sort of in the middle of nowhere and consists of some houses, a forest and the lake. It didn’t even have a general store. I enjoy the city but I love the country and really miss it sometimes. At least I can go back to visit.

Anyway, not that anyone cares, so onto the derby. The fair usually has about four rides, a game or two, some events and a couple of food stalls. I noticed that it has really downsized this year — there were no rides or games, just a barn full of animals, some 4-H activities, a flower show thing, chainsaw carving (I am not kidding), camel rides and a few food stands. But you know the highlight is the derby! Here’s a video from last year:

A post shared by Lindsey (@happyorhungry) on Aug 28, 2015 at 5:40pm PDT

I took all my videos on my Snapchat (happyorhungry) this year and I forgot to save them, so hopefully you caught the action live! One of my coworkers did and she said she felt like she was there with me.

Mark’s car from last year unfortunately did not live to see another derby, so this year he had a new sweet ride.

Scar’s car! (for Scarlett, Dawn and Mark’s daughter)

Cute.

I don’t think derby’s are really city things so I’d better explain…usually there are at least six cars in the ring at a time, and they all deliberately smash into one another until there is only one car still running. The winner!

The cars have all been gutted and all the glass has been removed for safety precautions. They usually modify with roll bars and like…fire things, I don’t know…as well.

Last year Mark came in third overall, so we all had high hopes for this year. We scored a seat up front to watch the action.

We got to talk to the man of the hour before his heat started.

He definitely looked the derby driver part.

Go 97!

His car was holding up well but there was a big jerk in his heat who was totally after him. He would purposely seek him out to smash into him, several times he would come barreling over from the opposite side of the ring and just crash into Mark as hard as possible. It was really annoying to watch. He also had a confederate flag on his car so we didn’t like that. I really wanted to see him lose. In the end the jerk won the heat, after he took out Mark.

Mark got second, which is not too shabby at all. His car took a serious beating and I could not believe it ran for as long as it did. It really held up. He should be proud. Derby royalty right here.

Mark would actually advance to the finals! If he could get his car running again, which…

did not look promising.

People were actually crowded around taking pictures of it.

While Mark worked on the car the girls walked over to his parents house (conveniently located directly next to the fairgrounds) and had a drink with his mom, so that was cute. By the time we got back Mark had gotten the car running again and was thinking the finals might happen, and then it stalled again forever, so that was the end of that.

Bye 97.

So then we went to the beer tent (not really a tent, just a fenced-in area) and that was a total elementary/high school reunion. I saw a kid I used to teach swimming lessons to when I was like 13 and he was about 4 or 5. My friend Melissa and I (and sometimes Lisa too if she was at the cottage) started our own swim club in our neighbourhood, offering lessons to all the local children for $2.

We didn’t have any official swimming instructor credentials or anything, but we spent the entire summer in the lake anyway so we figured we might as well make some money. Parents actually paid us $2 a week to teach their child how to swim. Not a liability issue at all!

So I saw one of the kids and we had a reunion and he was like “That is so crazy! I can’t believe my parents paid you to teach me how to swim!” I pointed out that he didn’t drown and asked him if he was a good swimmer now, and he said he’s a GREAT swimmer now! There ya go.

It was a really fun night. The entire evening was a hilarious experience that made me feel like I was back in high school. Can’t wait til next year!

First let me say this was one of my favorite posts to read. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about ol’ 97! I’m so sorry it didn’t beat that jerks car and I kind of want to creep under dark of night and destroy it for good.

And the swimming thing was great. I loved it. It was better than my job which was total cynicism (unusual for me) but I was always very realistic. ~ha. Nobody will pay me for THAT.~ So I wouldn’t do it. You definitely made more.

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Thanks for popping by! My name is Lindsey, and I pretty much have two moods: happy, or hungry. I like to tell stories and draw pictures of my adventures. I will do just about anything to make someone laugh.

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